Tempus
by Tara1189
Summary: Ginny Weasley is haunted by the past. Tom Riddle looks forward to the future. Such obsession always leaves traces. A two-shot Gin n'Tonic.
1. Part I: Lost In retrospect

**TEMPUS**

**PART I - Lost (In retrospect)**

_**Stuck somewhere back in between/ My blurred memories **_(Burn Season, Closer)

Ginny Weasley could never remember what it was like to not have her life dominated by a black-haired boy. First Harry. Then Tom. Then Harry again.

But no, that wasn't quite right. She frowned, twisting a strand of poppy-red hair around her finger, perhaps the only habit of childhood that hadn't been stolen from her all too soon.

Tom couldn't be replaced, couldn't be usurped. Tom had never left. She tried to put him away _(with other childish things)_ and had convinced everyone she had forgotten him. She had almost convinced herself.

Almost.

It wasn't so easy to deceive herself when she was away from the bustle of classes and Quidditch sheds and Dean's sweet, earnest kisses that always tasted like Butterbeer, saccharine and airy and innocent. And it was when the evenings drew in, the vivid red-gold of her dormitory fading to blue shade and ephemeral silver moonlight that it was hardest of all.

Tom was the cord she had never severed. The echo of words written but never spoken. He stole through her consciousness like a thief in the night, taking from her when she had nothing left to give. He stirred while the world slumbered and caressed her in the darkness with ghostly fingers. His breath cold against the hollow of her throat, causing her to shiver not unpleasantly. Beneath the sheets, she tossed and turned and squirmed and shuddered in _ -_

Innocence stolen, and all because of him.

She was a naïve, bright little girl when she first started writing to him, with her too-large robes and hair always spilling out of its childish braids. It was humiliating now, to think of the way she used to dote upon everything he said, drinking in every effortless compliment in her ignorance of the world, and her love of someone too perfect to be real. Lies moulding onto his lips, onto her heart. Hypnotic words welling through her veins like sweetly flowing poison.

_Would you help free me from these pages, Ginny?_

_Of course, Tom. You know I would._

_I suppose I do. Oh, I so long to be free. To see you in person. You must be beautiful, Ginny. _

_I don't…_

_And those classmates of yours are too foolish to notice? But when I am free… we can walk the grounds together, the forests and the lakes, feel the cold night air and see the stars again. And we will dance by moonlight, dance until the end of everything._

_Oh, Tom! That sounds beautiful._

_And will you seal that bond with a kiss and promise to love me always? _

_Yes. _Yes.

_I thought as much._

He began as little more than a shadow at her side. Until it all began to change. Then _she _felt like a shadow; the one being emptied, hollowed out. People made comments, whispered things, but did nothing to intervene. Meanwhile, inside the diary, he grew ever clearer, ever stronger, exuding power and brilliance and quietly controlled energy. All as she dwindled away, drab and grey and lifeless. A sad, haunted little ghost. Too long grasping at shadows until she became one herself. She saw herself reflected back in mirrors and the fractured surfaces of things: she was paler, thinner, gaunt almost.

Until one day she found herself in a place where there was nothing but cold and reflections, neither alive nor dead. Thin trails of mist shimmered and coalesced between carven serpents that stared down at her with jewelled ebony eyes. And Tom lying beside her, careless of the water seeping through his robes, iridescent green lights slanting across his face that was gradually gaining colour and definition. His hands were crossed over his chest, eyes closed reverently. He was smiling as her death crept ever closer, tasting the new life it would promise him.

And he was still the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

_You're going to die, Ginny Weasley. And no one will care. _

She reached out a pale, wasted hand, the rest of her too weak to move. Blackness was stealing across her vision, the green mist faint and flickering. She inhaled a thin breath through dry lips. _Tom… Tom, please…_

_If they remember you, they'll just think you did it. You'll die never being able to prove your innocence. What do you think about that?_

_I _hate _you -_

The echo of mocking laughter. _And here I thought you _loved_ me._

_No -_

_Do be quiet, Ginny. This is my time. My resurrection. I don't want your pathetic snivelling to ruin the moment. But still… I should be grateful. After all, were it not for you, I would never have been reborn. You had your part to play, and for that I must thank you. After all, Lord Voldemort does not forget those who do him a service._

He caught at her thin little hand with its sharp bones, folding his long fingers over it and pressing it to his heart. _Can you feel it, Ginny? Life - _my _life - coming back to me. All because of you._

_All because of you._

**The Underworld Story**

Often at night, Tom dreamed of London.

Behind closed lids, he would see explosions of searing light, smell the crackle of electricity and sulphur in the throbbing air underpinned by the coppery tang of blood. And he would start awake, cold and shaking, and knowing that summer - that dreaded time of year - was creeping ever closer.

And he had been close, so close to escaping it forever. Old Armando Dippet had told him as much.

"_The thing is, Tom, special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances…"_

Standing at the bottom of the long staircase, Tom silently agonised over the headmaster's words, what they would mean for him. Far below the depths of the castle, in the chamber of his ancestor, his Basilisk lay, secret and silent, waiting upon his command. And she was _beautiful_. Scales of shimmering emerald, cold to the touch and strong as tempered steel. For serpents killed, however tame. She responded to his every imperious order as he lingered over the sibilant Parseltongue words, the exquisite syllables resounding over the walls of stone set in place a thousand years ago. He was on the brink of something magnificent, the beginning of a new world, using an ancient beast to rewrite history as it should have been… and it was all ending before he had even begun.

That little brat Myrtle had been far more trouble than she was worth. One would not have thought the death of a worthless Mudblood would cause such an outcry. And Dippet - the craven, cowering fool - had spoken of closing the school.

Would he? _Could _he?

Tom knew he should have felt anger as Dippet explained this to him, sadly, resignedly. But he didn't. He felt fear.

He couldn't go back to that orphanage again. He _couldn't. _Not because of the war, the poverty, or the hunger - such dangers did not daunt him. There, another, greater danger threatened him; that of insignificance. At the orphanage, he was nothing, no one. He was not Lord Voldemort, the heir of Salazar Slytherin, there he was merely that Riddle boy, a pauper's brat, another mouth to feed. At night, he would lie in that cold, hard bed, where the sheets scratched starch across his bare skin, and the thin curtains flared with passing Doodlebugs. Arms wrapped around his knees, he would close his eyes, and whisper to himself, over and over, _I will not forget, I will not forget._

Or he would prowl the Underground, reciting the names of the stations, as he read them so frequently the words were burned behind his eyes. _Embankment, Charing Cross, Leicester Square, Tottenham Court Road…_

More often still, he would wander through the streets _(I wander through each chartered street) _daring the fire and smoke and debris. Every night an apocalypse. Premature dawn illumined the skies in synthetic amber and the clouds rained ash. Patterns of hyper-real light slanted across his skin in burning strips as the ground shuddered beneath his feet like an oncoming storm. He could smell death, taste it. Sharp and metallic with the chill of the grave. People sobbed in the charred ruins that had once been houses. Others huddled in churches, praying for a salvation that would not come. He saw death ever more frequently, a terrifying spectre stalking the streets of London, and the need to uncover the secret to immortality had become a vital compulsion.

It seemed to Tom, as he thought back, that London had always been this apocalyptic wasteland, the kind of darkened horror captured so perfectly by Doré in his paintings. A world where chemical lightning blazed through the skies as the warning sirens wailed over the shrapnel that shrieked in a death's course towards the condemned.

No, not condemned. That was what struck Tom about the Blitz. There was no organisation, no efficiency to the attacks. Simply madness and fire. How different to the refined precision of the _Avada Kedavra _or the subtlety of the Imperious curse. Even _Crucio _had a kind of… focused elegance in the utmost control one wielded over the victim. Nothing like this brutish onslaught. It was utter chaos.

Even Mrs Cole had passed away the previous summer, killed by flying shrapnel as she was out doing her rounds. Tom was almost disappointed. He would have liked to do it himself - sever his last (_only_) tie to the Muggle world. Instead, she merely another forgotten casualty, a name on an endless list that no one would bother reading when _(if) _the war ended.

It disgusted him. The Muggles were like animals, blowing themselves apart in contraptions of scorched, perspiring metal and rippling waves of infernal heat. To hold such power and use it so carelessly. Where was the beauty, the poetry, the symmetry? Tom knew that he would never resort to such disordered violence. No, when his time came, he would create a sign. Something unique and magnificent. Something iconic. But how could he hope to do so if he was banished from Hogwarts forever?

He must have been standing there for longer than he thought; his skin had gone pale and hard as cold marble in the chill of the evening.

_If the person was caught... if it all stopped…_

He knew what must be done. Tom slowly drew his wand and set off down the corridor with a calm determination. _For now, _he told himself_. Only for now._

But soon, he would never have to hide who he truly was. When that day came, he would split the world asunder then build it anew.

And never again would he be powerless.

**Heroes and Villains **

He had stood there in the office, covered in blood and water and slime, the oversized sword in his hand dragging across the floor. His glasses were smeared and his black hair was a tangled mess. He resembled nothing so much as an untidy magpie. It was hard to believe this very same boy had wielded a sword against a Basilisk and defeated the heir of Slytherin.

"You're a hero, Harry."

That had been her mother, tearful and stunned. Ron clapped him on the back, gangly and filthy, but grinning broadly. Even Professor McGonagall gave Harry a curt, stern nod, though suspicious moisture flashed through her fierce green eyes. Dumbledore's lined face was filled with pride.

Harry. Her hero, her champion, her light where Tom had brought only darkness. Ginny had been too shy to speak, too shy to say _anything. Thank you _seemed so… inadequate. _I love you_ too melodramatic.

So she had said nothing.

She merely stood there, shivering, her red hair plastered to her pallid skin, like a drowned mermaid out of water. She should have died in those inky green depths, the cloying cold closing around her, the last sight in her mortal life being those dark, slanting eyes… but instead, she was here, in Dumbledore's office, skin and flesh and blood, not paper and leather and ink. Her father's hand was on her shoulder, large and familiar and freckled, yet other hands came to mind: pale and slender and long-fingered. She fought down the savage urge to shake it off.

"At least it's over now," her father said, as he led her from the office.

Ginny glanced down. For a moment, she was certain she had ink on her hands, but maybe it was only her veins she saw after all, as when she looked again, there was nothing there.

And perhaps that made her cry most of all.

…

He had stood there in the office, tall and upright and immaculate, the Prefect's badge gleaming on his robes. He radiated an aura of calm and reliability.

"You're a hero, Tom."

Tom looked uncomfortable. "The teachers don't like me talking about it, sir. Professor Dippet was particularly insistent about the issue." His voice was soft, smooth and polite, the customary tone he used with his teachers. The professors liked that. They took it as subtle acknowledgement of their authority, an implicit nod to their intelligence.

Horace Slughorn was no different. He smiled indulgently. "Of course, of course. Still, credit where credit is due. What you did was remarkably brave, Tom - no sense in denying that."

"Thank you, sir." Tom kept his expression deliberately bland.

"Now, off to the dormitory with you. You don't want to be late."

"Yes, sir. Goodnight."

Tom took his leave, walking down the corridor with an easy, measured pace. None of the teachers would chastise him for being out several minutes after hours. Not after being branded the saviour of the school. He inhaled deeply, the scent of the night drifting through the open castle windows clear and bracing. The corridor was bathed in golden light from the sconces; he could feel the brief, glowing heat warm against the surface of his skin each time he passed one by. Outside the windows, the long shadows had darkened to black, a bleak, drizzling rain blurring the glass. Tom thought briefly of Rubeus Hagrid stumbling around the grounds in the dark and had to fight back a laugh. It had been a stroke of brilliance that had surprised even him. Not only had he handed Dippet a culprit, he had ensured that the staff believed there _was _no culprit - that the Chamber of Secrets was nothing more than a legend. His secret remained safe. He held the entire school in the palm of his hand, professors and students, kings and castles and pawns. They had all lost without even knowing they were playing.

And it seemed to Tom that life was good.

_**The demons of the past compete/And draw and tear my heart to pieces **_(Boris Pasternak, Mary Magdalene)

Whenever Ginny walked down a corridor, she saw Tom.

Not all at once, of course. It would be head of dark hair here, a tall, slender body there. Sometimes, it was more subtle. The arrogant arch of someone's shoulders, the softness in a voice that both caressed and threatened at the same time. But she was able to fit the fragmented pieces together to form a whole, a secret picture that she carried with her everywhere. Skin as white as snow, hair as black as coal, a fairytale prince who brought no happily-ever-after, but instead roses that concealed thorns, everlasting cold, and castles that turned out to be prisons after all.

And then, perhaps it was inevitable that she really _did_ begin to see Tom, after looking so long, and finding him everywhere. After spending so many years assembling him from bits of paper and coal, pouring black ink into his irises and snake's venom through his veins, encasing the whole in hard, perfect marble. She had brought him to life once, it was not so surprising that she could do it again.

It was small flashes, at first. But gradually, memory by memory trickled in. Not _her _memories - not entirely, anyway. But the present receded to a distant wilderness, and the past swallowed her up. Time flew backwards and her consciousness spiralled through a sea of images, faces, names. Walls crumbled and rebuilt themselves. Sound and noise and light and laughter returned as a world - _his _world - was constructed around her.

She had always imagined from Wizarding photographs that 1943 would be everlastingly sepia-toned, or rather like something that Hermione called an old-fashioned move-ee. It came as something of a shock to realise that it was just as vivid and alive and Hogwarts in the present day.

Only, of course, Ginny wasn't interested in glimpses of Hogwarts in its fifty-year past. She was interested in _him._

And she wasn't the only one. Heads turned as he passed by, smooth, elegant, aloof. There was a certain _glamour _in everything he said and did, a cool assurance that was magnetic. She remembered it all, and ached inside. Those empty places that _he _had filled were hollow, devoid of that sense of perverse completeness.

She followed him everywhere. A dizzying movement from corridor to classroom, up winding stairs to towers and down again. Faces, faces, faces. Yet she still couldn't get at him, near him. She needed him, but knew perfectly well that he didn't need her. Worse even than that, he didn't _see _her. No one did.

She saw, but could not touch. Even though he was alive, really alive, his chest rising and falling with steady breaths, his pulse beating in his throat, he was as distant to her as that elusive spirit bound within paper and sealed with spells. There was still a translucent quality to his beauty, even in hard, physical reality. For once - just _once - _she wanted to reach out and touch him. To see if his skin was as cold and hard as his soul. But he was not incapable of human feeling, she knew that. Hunger, hatred, rage… oh, he could certainly feel.

He had certainly made _her_ feel in the long winter nights when he fed her dreams even as he consumed her soul. She ran after him, feet thudding soundlessly against the stone floors as he talked and laughed carelessly with people who had no idea what he truly was. Ginny almost envied their ignorance.

_Oh, Tom. Why did you make me hate you when I so easily could have loved you?_

**Memento Mori**

One year, one heir, one monster. So many deaths.

The serpent engraved on the tap gleamed like liquid quicksilver in the cold, ephemeral light. And Tom Marvolo Riddle smiled into his reflection. There was blood on his fingers and ink in his veins and a song in his heart.

He didn't know why it was that he kept returning to this place, especially as the Chamber could never be opened while he remained at Hogwarts. But this was where it had all began, for him_. _Tom placed a ghostly-pale hand against the cold glass. Killing was an extraordinary feeling. He felt such power. He felt no guilt. He could look upon his own self in the glass and know only the certainty. The deaths at his hand had been necessary, and that was enough. He had always known he was meant for something greater than what he was.

Yet one eternity was not enough. He would create another.

And this would be greater, far greater than gaining Slytherin's ring, even. _That_ victory had been tainted by his witnessing the hovel the Gaunts called their home, the decayed and contemptuous state the noble House had dwindled into. They had turned the noble bloodline of Salazar Slytherin into a mockery. Tom had come expecting them to be great, terrible, even, and what he had in fact encountered was… a mockery. That humiliation still burned within him. They had deserved to be eradicated. He had felt no remorse in killing them. It had not been a hasty thing, rashly done in anger or bloodlust. He had carried it out with a calm, cold clarity, knowing what must be done. The old would die out, and the new would rise in its place.

_One for sorrow, two for joy_. First the ring. And now the diary.

Shallow, stupid Myrtle had had her uses, after all. But this one would be different. Not merely a symbol of his having purged the unworthy elements of his ancestry, aligning himself fully with the bloodline of Salazar Slytherin. No, this had another, higher purpose. A cleansing through venom and blood.

But he could not do it alone. He needed to bide his time while the school remained so cautious. Another would have to act in his stead.

_Another heir?_

No, he wanted no offspring, no progeny. He - the last surviving heir, the greatest of all Salazar Slytherin's descendants - no, he was not willing to share glory. He alone had the blood of Slytherin running through his veins, so it must remain.

Tom often thought back to those ancient days of Gryffindor and Slytherin as their ties, bound in will and magic and blood, slowly drained away. He twirled Slytherin's ring round and round his finger, deep in thought.

_Friends. Brothers. Rivals. Enemies._

Slytherin had been foolish, Tom decided, in trusting the other Founders. Not that he hadn't seen sense in the end, of course… but he should have acted alone from the first. Courageous as Gryffindor, sharp-minded as Ravenclaw, resilient as Hufflepuff… what need had he of any of them?

_Divide et impera_, he thought to himself. _Divide and conquer._

And he would never die.

His reflection was ghostlike in the greenish darkness. Vague and insubstantial. Was this what it would be like for the fragment of his spirit entrapped within the diary? A part of him shuddered slightly at the thought of himself - even if only a small part - enclosed within those dark pages, cold and silent until -

Until what?

That was something he could only guess at. Tom had little patience for Divination. He would shape his own destiny, and there would be none to tell him his limits. He had walked fearlessly through the darkened trees in the Forbidden Forest, seeking out the Centaurs who dwelt there, but they eluded him. And in the night sky, Mars burned ever brighter. War was coming.

Not the war fought by the Muggles that he witnessed every time he returned to the detestable orphanage, where shrapnel shrieked through the sky and London smouldered to ash. Not Grindlewald, massing his dark armies in the east. Something greater still. The stars foretold it.

But first, he must arm himself, make certain that he would be invincible when the time came.

His former enemies had been so _weak. _His father. The Gaunts. Myrtle. He needed something, something _more. _

He needed one worthy. One strong enough to endure his soul. There would be those who were weak. Those who would be consumed by his spirit in an instant. He would not entrust his soul to any worthless fool who happened to stumble by.

He would destroy them in the end, of course. But he sought after one who would last. A worthy adversary.

Tom pressed his pale hands together as though in prayer, his dark head bowed as the silver serpent blurred across his vision.

_Where are you? _

_**Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? **_(Revelations, V)

Ginny never thought she would meet anyone who spent more time in the library than Hermione. But Tom did.

Hidden behind a stack of shelves, she watched as he studied for hours, never seeming to tire of perusing book after book. He seemed to crave knowledge as others craved love and affection. His pale features became ardent with animation, thin lips pressed together as his dark eyes moved hungrily across pages and pages, pausing occasionally to scribble something down on a spare scrap of parchment. Her heart caught in her throat as she recognised the elegant, slanting handwriting that would haunt her until her dying day. She imagined that she saw not incantations or magical theory but the old words of promises and love that she had been so willing to believe… _I'll always be there for you, Ginny, you know that. Even when your brothers tease you and your parents forget to write or when Harry Potter is too foolish to notice you, I'll be here. Forever. Just tell me your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams. I want to know _everything _about you. You do trust me, don't you, Ginny? You do love me? More than anyone else in the world? You do? Then let me give you the chance to prove it to me… that's right, Ginny. Don't be scared. Trust me. Trust your Tom. And believe me, you'll never feel insignificant again…_

Even when his eyes became pearlescent with fatigue, dark curls falling over his brow as his head drooped with tiredness, he continued to study with a preternatural tenacity. And what was he searching for? What was it he sought after so endlessly?

Ginny strained forward. His lips moved, shaping the one word that haunted and consumed him. _Horcruxes, horcruxes, horcruxes._

She watched as his eyes gradually began to close, lashes casting dark shadows across his pale cheeks. Finally, his head rested on one of the opened books, black hair spilling over the faded pages. He seemed strangely vulnerable in slumber, one arm flung possessively across the stacks of parchment as his chest rose and fell with soft breaths. Ginny was startled at how _young _he looked, flushed with sleep, curling hair damp against his temples, the softening of his tense mouth.

_He's at peace, _she realised wonderingly. _He's actually at peace here._

…

That his future would be ensured through a book struck him as curiously fitting. There was something beautiful and violent and Medieval in the idea. It harkened back to the centuries of Catholic mortification and penitence, of solemn Latin intonations and hellfire captured within the gold bindings and engraved pages. Tom remembered his early days spent inside cramped schoolrooms with chipped desks and backless chairs as his teachers would read aloud sermons to unreceptive children who knew already there was no virtue to be found in poverty. Tom never listened to these tedious moral platitudes, but instead thought of _Revelations, _of a child being born that escaped being devoured by the dragon, of the rising Beast signifying the ending of the old way of things, and those loyal to the Beast that would bear its mark.

Blood and fire, death and rebirth, and he would be at the centre of it all. He had already unleashed the serpent, and that too would rise again, when the time was right.

Tom was seated with the book open on his lap, as silent and absorbed as the boy who once bent over second-hand textbooks, but how different, how different…

The hand that held the wand was steady even as he traced it across his palm, watching the skin open, a blade of burning ice parting his flesh. Tom fought down the pain of it, fought it down until his lips turned white. Then he carved another thin line on his alternate hand, his movements slow, deliberate. For a moment, the scars remained, silver-pale, until vivid blood began welling from the identical cuts. The blood of Salazar Slytherin. The blood of his past, his future. Tom stared, fascinated, then his vision blurred and he saw -

_A small, intent face, a flash of red hair -_

He turned his palms downward. The drops fell, glinting like rubies against the smooth pages…

"_Dear Tom," she began to say, and it was her tears he saw, her tears and his blood -_

…before being absorbed, disappearing into the paper without a trace. Tom remained unmoving, his pale face intent with thought as the fleeting image faded.

Blood magic. Tom knew well the importance of blood. It had set him above mediocrity, placed him on the path to his destiny. He stared at the single red lines marring the perfect whiteness of his hands. He could have healed them in an instant, but he rather liked having them there. Still… it would not do to have anyone asking questions…

A muttered incantation and the skin sealed itself effortlessly, the tracery of veins disappearing beneath the young, regrown flesh. Yet still the icy sensation remained, a faint spider's thread of frost across the lifelines of his palms.

He held the quill, poised above the pages. He was transcribing himself, his very essence into this book. The words he wrote now would shape all that was to come. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. _In the beginning was the Word…_

He pressed the nib down on the paper as he began to write -

A knocking on the door disturbed him. Tom sighed with annoyance. The diary's pages became instantly blank once more. He laid the quill to once side. There was no trace of blood on his hands. Good. Tom looked up towards the door.

"Come in."

When Cygnus Black entered, Tom was lazing back in his seat, twirling his wand idly between his long fingers. The diary was nowhere to be seen.

"Tom? Professor Slughorn wanted me to give you this." He laid a gilded envelope on the table. Tom glanced at it carelessly. An invitation. How trite.

"Is that all?"

Cygnus hesitated. "I just…"

"What?"

"Did you do it?" His voice was low, hushed, eager.

"Do what?" Tom said, without interest.

"Well… _you_ know."

Tom merely looked at him. Silence was often as powerful a weapon as speech, and this case proved to be no different. He noted with a detached disinterest that beads of perspiration had gathered on Black's forehead.

"It's just… we all know. That you're the heir, I mean."

Tom leaned forward. "Is that so?" he asked softly. "And what would you do with such knowledge? Does it give you some… sense of power?"

Fear flickered in the boy's eyes. "N-no - I didn't mean -"

"No." Tom was almost disappointed. "I don't suppose you did."

He waited until the Slytherin was almost at the door before he spoke again.

"Oh, and Black?"

Cygnus turned to face him nervously.

Tom spoke quietly, idly examining a nail, not looking at him. "Question me again, or do anything so foolish as to mention this conversation to anyone… you will regret it." He smiled. "And _that _I am telling you the truth about."

"I won't, I promise -"

"Get out," said Tom, pleasantly.

Cygnus fled.

**Winter Nights**

The Gryffindor common room was filled with warmth and light, glowing red as the inside of the belly of a sleeping dragon. The fire crackled, rich with the smell of holly berries and cinnamon and mulled wine. The heady fumes were making her sleepy. Arnold the Pygmy Puff was snuggled against her shoulder, purring slightly. Ginny was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, teeth pressing into her lower lips as she attempted to wind a stubborn twist of holly into a wreath. She had thought of giving it to Fleur as a Christmas present.

Harry was curled up in one of the armchairs, absorbed in that Potions book he always seemed to be reading these days. Hermione was seated at his feet, her back leaning against his knees, and Ron was… _probably off snogging Lavender Brown, _Ginny thought, then immediately wished she hadn't. Hermione was reading too, her face glowing in the warmth of the fire. She shifted against Harry's legs; he glanced down at her and smiled. Ginny wished she hadn't seen that. She never made Harry smile like that. Laugh, certainly. With a slightly sad smile, she laid the tangled snarl of holly to one side, watching the two of them, the easy familiarity she always saw whenever they were together.

Harry sighed, taking his glasses off as he rubbed his eyes with the other hand.

Ginny felt her heart contract. She so rarely saw him with his glasses off. Without them, he looked older, harder, somehow, his features more clear-cut and defined. It was both strange and horribly familiar. And then she seemed to see another figure superimposed over his, someone else who had leant over a book with such quiet intensity. The angular shoulders, the coal-smudge of dark hair startling against the whiteness of his skin -

"Ginny?"

She blinked. Harry's green eyes were tired and bemused as they looked at her. The precise colour of the _Avada Kedavra _curse. Now why had she thought that?

"What?"

"You're staring."

"Oh." She felt herself flush. "Sorry."

Hermione looked from one to the other. "Well," she said rather loudly. "I'm going to bed."

Ginny barely noticed her leave. She was aware only of Harry as he came to kneel on the floor beside her. Suddenly, she was no longer tired, every part of her body alive and humming as though she were on the Quidditch pitch. Harry yawned and stretched, rumpled, himself again. Nothing like Tom, nothing, nothing. "Where's Dean tonight?"

"Oh," she shrugged carelessly. "I left him and Seamus by the statue of the one-eyed witch." She smirked. "With a bottle of Firewhiskey." Annoyance bit through her. Why must he ask about Dean?

For something to do, she began fiddling with the holly again and gasped as it sliced across her skin. A thin line of blood spread across her small, freckled hand. She swore quietly, clenching her fist as she bit down the sharp pain.

"Here."

She jumped. Harry was suddenly in front of her, his firm, slender fingers pressing a wad of material against the hurt. She looked at him. Having him so close made her ache. She loved him, loved him. Oh, more than anything. She could feel it like the fire against her skin, heating her blood into a fever. But she didn't mind. She wanted that warmth.

"It's alright." She heard herself speak as though from a very great distance.

They both looked down at his hand covering hers. They seemed to _fit _together. Ginny realised only then that he was using his own jumper to absorb the trail of blood. Always, him there to stop the bleeding and make the pain go away.

"You'll ruin your jumper," she said.

He smiled at her. "I don't mind."

"Neither do I."

He was still holding her hand. She could feel the rapid beat of his pulse - or was it hers? It did not matter, the pain did not matter, not with _him_… Ginny leaned forward. Her red hair fell between them in a scented curtain, shielding them from the outside world and the bitter cold. Only Harry, the warmth of him, the distant crackle of the fire and his steady breathing... _And will you seal that bond with a kiss and promise to love me always? _

She jerked backwards. The colour and hum and chatter of the common room rushed back into focus. Harry's hand was no longer in hers. He had stood up.

"Try essence of Murtlap," he said, then was gone.

Ginny sighed, letting her head fall into her hands. _Merry Christmas, Ginny._

And somewhere, she heard a faint laugh.

…

The howling of ice winds shrieking past the frost-rimmed windows was the only sound in the near-deserted common room. The castle was far enough north that there were precious few hours of daylight at this time of year; now, at the winter solstice, the night-shrouded world seemed to be breathing its last.

Tom was seated on the window ledge, his chin resting on one hand as he stared out through the darkened glass. His breath was misting in the cold air, but he did not mind. He didn't feel the cold these days and wondered why that should be. He had certainly felt it back at the orphanage, in those bitter London winters so fierce it brought tears to his eyes whenever he stepped outside or ploughed through the dimly-lit streets in fraying second-hand coats too large for his slender frame.

He remembered the evenings he used to slip away to Oxford Street because it was always lit up and blazing like a magnificent Christmas tree. Normally tight-fisted stall owners, filled with Christmas cheer, used to slip him handfuls of roasted chestnuts that burned his fingers. Crouched in shop-door openings, Tom had watched glamorous couples in fur-lined coats sweeping past, laughing in high, elegant, cultured voices. They did not even glance at the poorly-dressed, Dickensian-looking waif with his mop of charcoal hair and feverishly pale skin. They didn't know that he would have been one of them, had his father not -

But Tom didn't want to think about his father. After all, he had taken his revenge, had he not?

Instead, he continued to gaze out the window. The grounds were beautiful when shrouded in crystalline frost, the surface of the lake still and glinting as the heart of a clear-cut diamond. The distant trees were laden with snow, their branches wearing coats of liquid glass that glinted beneath the cold stars. Suddenly, Tom wanted to be standing outside, to feel the ice on his skin and the breath of ancient magic, such as the Founders must have known in those long ago days of storm and blood and fire.

He loved Hogwarts in winter, when it was almost deserted like this. He could imagine the castle belonging entirely to him, as some day it would be. Tom was certain of this. And he would fill its stone walls with ebony and emerald, serpent's eyes and ancient scrolls. _Soon, _he told himself. _Soon. _It would not be long. He could feel it in his bones.

He loved too the solitude, the quiet in this world of endless ice. So why the fleeting glimpses of fiery hair and flashing dark eyes that caught him at unawares ever since he had bled into the diary? Was it a side effect? Or a sign? If it were anyone else, he would have suspected the spell had gone wrong. But he had done everything _perfectly. _

Yet still the images persisted, elusive, maddening, particularly whenever the book was close by. If he could only pin them down. Or rather, _her, _for he knew it was a her, even if the exact details of the face escaped him. But such a pretty girl. And one that he wanted so very, very much. To wrap his hands in that pretty red hair as he broke her pretty red heart.

He could do it. He wanted to do it.

"Have you seen her, then?"

Tom turned around. His bones ached at the movement after sitting so long in one position. Ignatius Prewett was facing him.

"Who?" he demanded sharply.

"Druella, of course." The younger boy smirked. "We all saw you, at Slughorn's party."

"Oh," said Tom, idly, tracing a finger down the glass. "That."

He recalled spending most of the evening with Druella Rosier, a Slytherin a year younger than himself. At the end of the night, he had pulled her under the mistletoe and kissed her hard, careless of the wolf-whistles and envious glances thrown Druella's way. Instead, he held her firmly as snow from the enchanted ceiling crowned their entwined figures and diamond bright lights glinted in the frosty night. How strange. He had almost forgotten it.

"She's pretty," Ignatius offered.

Tom shrugged indifferently. "The Rosiers are a powerful family."

He leaned back, resting his cheek against the cold glass, thinking. He recalled that Druella's father held a high position within the Ministry. That was something worth remembering. Yes, Druella would do, for the time being. She was an adequate pawn for his purposes, though Tom had known at once that there was a lack, something missing. A secret, unacknowledged part of him hungered for a spark, a fire that could never be found in Druella's ice-blue eyes or silver-pale hair. He could never regard her with anything more than a detached bodily lust that never touched him. Beyond that, he felt nothing for her other than contempt. She was willing, and she was loyal, and Slytherin enough to possess a healthy streak of self-preservation - enough to keep her mouth shut at any rate. Yes, she would do very well.

And yet… and yet… Out of the corners of his vision, a figure danced across the lake, leaving it melted and steaming, the ice black and slick in wake of such heat. Hair the colour of a scarlet sunrise. Red as holly berries and rich wine and a warmth he had never known. Didn't _want _to know.

Tom picked up his quill. He felt incomplete without one in his hand these days. Summoning a sheet of parchment, he scrawled _Dear Druella _across the top_, _then leaned back against the window. He began to smile.

_**You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love. **_(Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre)

She drifted through the corridors, through other people's existences, as empty and insignificant as she had felt in those first days at Hogwarts when it seemed Tom had been her only friend _(all lies)_. The crowds of unseeing students instinctively parted around her, like water. And at last. Him. His lean figure was a dark silhouette against the warm light of the hall. The Prefect badge gleamed on his chest like a trapped emerald. He carried a book under one arm, the picture of a model student. He was surrounded by a group of classmates talking eagerly to him, but didn't seem to be paying them much attention.

"Tom!"

Tom looked up at the sound of his name and his mouth curled up at the edges. The clear, feminine voice had come from one of the girls waiting at the door. Ginny had briefly noticed her in the corridor. She was tall and striking; high cheekbones, narrow chin, a mouth that was firm and stubborn rather than soft and delicate. She was drawing a few envious glances and looked as though she knew it. There was a cool, elegant remoteness to her that commanded attention. Cold yet brilliantly beautiful, an untouchable ice-queen. Only now, with Tom standing before her, she seemed to diminish slightly, suddenly becoming as demure and blushing as any sixteen-year old girl.

"Druella," Tom murmured. "You waited for me. Isn't that… sweet."

The girl called Druella looked up at him, ice-blonde hair falling over her shoulders in shimmering waves. "I thought you'd want to see me."

"Is that right?"

"Don't you?"

"Don't I always?" He sounded faintly amused.

"It's hard to tell with you."

"Then let's make things a little clearer." Tom manoeuvred her easily against the wall, seemingly careless of the students milling around them in the transitional rush between classes.

Druella looked up at him through a fringe of pale gold lashes. "I don't know you at all. Do I?"

"Don't pretend you mind." His silken voice, laced with an undercurrent of desire, caused chills to ripple across the back of Ginny's neck. She shivered in the draughty corridor, though it wasn't from cold.

"Here?" the girl said, and for the first time her brightly confident voice faltered a little.

"Why? Ashamed to be seen with me?"

"Ashamed?" She laughed, a sound so light and careless it brought tears to Ginny's eyes. "Right now I'm the most envied girl in the school."

"And why is that?"

She smiled. "Because I'm Tom Riddle's girlfriend."

At that moment, everything inside Ginny seemed to shatter. She couldn't move. Couldn't think.

Her mouth opened in a silent scream, every part of her being _screaming_ until her throat was surely bloody and raw, her nails slipping on hot palms, slick with sweat and tears, and Tom -

_Tom - _

He knew all her darkest secrets, had drank from her soul, shattered her innocence, destroyed her life -

And he was seeing someone else.

And somehow this betrayal was worse than all the others. She stood motionless, a roaring in her ears. Hanging onto the edges of her sanity. She thought she would die from the pain of it, yet could not look away, not even when Tom leaned forward, tilting his mouth over the girl's with a determined, chaste desire.

Ginny felt her legs weaken, a ferocious, hungry ache ravaging her insides at the sight of Tom - _her _Tom - holding another so passionately. And still she could not look away. How could she, when he was burnt into her heart and soul? It was too much. The way the girl arched into Tom, her body bending submissively, the effortless ease with which he supported her slender weight, his hands exploring every inch of her with a kind of slow, languorous sensuality that made Ginny aware of a hot, flushed feeling creeping through her face and legs. _He doesn't love her, _she thought to herself fiercely. _He doesn't love her. _But they looked _perfect _together, light and dark, alpha and omega. And she the lonely outsider, even though inside, she was burning, burning alive. And he was so controlled, even in passion, kissing the girl with slow deliberation as though he had all the time in the world. A serpent sinking its fangs into pliant, willing prey. Yet if this was death, if this was poison, how sweet it seemed. To fall into that folding dark embrace as the deadly venom pulsed through the blood, rendering the body helpless even while refusing to fight…

Then Tom's eyes _opened_.

Ginny could not move. He seemed to be staring directly at her, though that was impossible, of course... _No one _could see her. But his dark brows drew together in startled surprise. And his eyes. _Tom's _eyes. Blacker than ink, blacker than darkness -

She stumbled backwards, her back thudding through someone's robes. Blindly, she allowed herself to be swept along with the crowd. Faces blurred and she could hear nothing but the howl of voices filling her ears... Her world was falling down around her - but, no - it was _his _world, falling, falling… and no one else seemed to notice. The castle groaned. Glass from the window panes shattered. Ginny threw herself down, hands covering her eyes as she cowered on the floor -

And found herself in 1997.

He had betrayed her fifty-four years ago.

_**You like them with the spirit to be naughty? **_(Henry James, _The Turn of the Screw_)

Sometimes she was a child. A child with enormous dark eyes and a stream of blazing hair.

Tom had never liked children. They were coarse and irritating and prattled endlessly. But children grew up. Children could be moulded and shaped into powerful weapons. Children could be deceptively innocent.

And this little girl, that haunted his imagination? She was stupid and tiresome, not even any superior intelligence to render her other than average. But perhaps it was better that way. Such guileless purity. Spotless and unstained. A blank slate for a blank diary. This way, he could transcribe his essence onto her all the more easily. Oh, how much more interesting she would become, then.

_Sugar and spice and all things nice. _

Blood and tears and serpent's scales, that's what this little girl would be made of, when Tom was done with her.

It would not be the first time. Tom remembered the tang of salt air, the crash and struggle of roiling waves and eroded rocks slick beneath his hands. Terrified breathing in the darkness. But more vivid still, the awakening of something dormant within him, unfurling like a snake rearing its head for the first time, _making things happen, _giving him power where he had been powerless. Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop had been practice, he realised now. A prelude, to show that he could do what must be done. Even they had had their purpose.

But this was different. He needed to know more. That vision or _something _he had seen in the corridor drove him to madness, to distraction. He had glimpsed flame and porcelain and eyes, dark eyes. Oh, those eyes. The way she had _looked _at him -

_When she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad…_

He needed answers. Never before had Tom so single-mindedly sought to lose control over himself or his body, but the mind must be opened. There were ways and means, he knew that. He had done it before, when necessity demanded it of him, even though it left him drained and aching for days on end. But he would not be daunted. Not by a mere slip of a girl. And he _would _have answers.

He drank firewhiskey until the blood boiled in his veins and forced himself to stay awake until his mind spun and lost all sense of itself. He read books that whispered things and pierced his hands with metal bindings, and he drank bitter potions that tasted like live snakes writhing in his insides, savagely tearing at his organs until he convulsed on the floor in silent agony.

His body jerked, spasming, and Tom clutched at his stomach, feeling his lungs compressing in on themselves. Air and shadows writhed, and he saw - he saw -

A little bright-haired girl picking up a quill, the scratching of words on parchment. Water, water dripping, echoing. Then he saw a little ghost girl entombed in a stone sepulchre, guarded over by towering serpents… _the Chamber of Secrets has been opened, Enemies of the Heir Beware_… as the ice-water in his veins turned to blood once more, the solid marble of his flesh gaining sensation and warmth and life… hissing in his ears… _let me rip… let me tear… let me kill… _his Basilisk coiling and writhing, a deadly scream splitting the cold, cloying air, the echoes thrown around the cavernous walls. The images came, faster and faster, blurring, maddening. Emerald scales and ruby swords, gold feathers and blood, blood, blood, and still the writing went on, burning across his eyelids, never-ending, __ _-_

Tom screamed, once, and then all was silent.

When he came to himself again, he was still lying on the faded green carpet, curling hair plastered to his damp brow. Aftershocks of pain rippled through his body, but he managed to smile through the splitting sensation in his temples. He had been right. The girl, the diary, it was all one and the same, and now he knew it for certain.

_That girl holds the key to my immortality._

* * *

**Part II to follow shortly. Shortly(er) if reviews are forthcoming. X**


	2. Part II: Window to Your Soul

**PART II - Window to Your Soul**

**Chasing Midnight**

The next time Ginny saw the perfect couple, they didn't seem quite so perfect.

He was standing alone in the astronomy tower, deathly pale under the moonlit rays. His head was bowed as he stared down at the black-bound book that lay open in his hands. The pages were blank, the most visible thing in the midst of shrouded shadows.

"Dance by moonlight," he murmured aloud to himself, and Ginny felt an acute ache pierce her at the soft words as they echoed around the circular walls. Memory stole through her, haunting remembrance tainted with melancholy. Twilight promises whispered under the allure of darkness. But he had lied, for she hadn't danced, she had drowned, was drowning still…

Tom moved forward until he stood at the stone ledge. In the nocturnal stillness, he could have been standing at the edge of the world. Below him, far below, the Hogwarts grounds lay open at his feet. The diamond blue of the still lake, the dark forest stretching into the distance. Remote and so terribly beautiful. Sudden terror seized her that he would fall and she wanted to call out, to warn him. He _couldn't _fall. Not him. Not Tom.

"Familiar," he muttered, "But _why -_"

"_Tom."_

Ginny spun round. There, framed in the doorway, hair forming a brilliant halo around her face, stood Druella. She possessed none of the grace and poise that Ginny had noted before so enviously; her expression was wild, fevered, her eyes too bright. For a moment, Ginny just stared at the tableau the two of them made, still and silent, divided across the stretch of room. Pale, so pale, like the ghostly lovers of a thousand years ago. She shivered, recalling the story Luna had told her once of Helena Ravenclaw and the Bloody Baron. Was this girl going to meet her death up here? Would Tom murder her and smile that cruel smile even as she lay bleeding, silver blood staining the stone floor as it stained his soul?

But Tom merely sighed, impatience evident in his voice. "What is it?"

"We need to talk."

He didn't even turn around, but continued to gaze out over the moonlit grounds. "I'm busy."

"I don't care." She moved towards him, fists clenched at her sides.

"You'll cause a scene," he said carelessly. "Or is that what you want?"

"If it'll get you to listen - _Tom!" _Her voice abandoned the hush whispers they had been speaking in, rising to a near-shriek._ "_You'll talk to me _now -"_

In a swift movement, he had turned and pinned her against the wall, one hand resting on the stone mere inches from her waist. Druella's eyes had gone wide in startled surprise; she was breathing hard. She looked both sickly and mesmerisingly otherworldly. Ginny knew what must have happened, knew it just by looking. The girl had given Tom everything she had and burned herself out until only a brittle shell remained. Ginny knew that emptiness well, had been there herself. Had never left.

"Well, lover," Tom said quietly. "You wanted to talk. Then talk."

Druella lifted her chin, sapphire eyes desperate and furious. "What's going on, Tom? First you ask me to be your girlfriend; then you just brush me off like I'm nothing when you don't want me around. When I talk, you don't hear a word I'm saying -"

Tom's other hand, holding the book, slammed hard against the wall above her head. Both Druella and Ginny jumped. His pale face was as calm as ever, but his eyes were blazing. "I'm listening now, aren't I? Does that make you happy, Druella? Or did you want something more? Did you want to see how far you could push me? _Do not attempt it. _You wouldn't want me to hate you. Trust me."

"How can I trust you when you don't tell me anything?"

"Why don't you ask me what it really is you want to know?"

The girl drew a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. "Is there someone else? I'm not blind, Tom. I've seen the way Walburga Black looks at you -"

He laughed, and Ginny winced at the sharp cruelty in the sound. "Jealousy? How very beneath you, Druella."

"I _know _something's not right. And I want you to tell me. Otherwise I'll -"

"You'll what? Leave me?" His lip curled. "I'd like to see you try."

"I will," she said, but her voice wavered, uncertain.

Tom smiled, long fingers tracing the line of her jaw. Ginny thought again of a cobra toying with its prey. "You couldn't. Though I think I would admire you more if you did."

"You don't love me," she said. "I know that. I'm not entirely naïve. So _why -"_

"Because right now I wish to have you with me," he answered simply. "And -" his voice dropped to a whisper, "Something tells me you don't mind that too much…" His hands slid downwards, curving around her slender body and tracing slow patterns through the material of her robes, dipping into the shadows of her waist until she shuddered an exhalation.

"Don't…" she breathed in half-hearted resistance. Tom only laughed and drew her into a swift, possessive kiss that she made no attempt to fight, only this time there was something cruel in the detached passion of his caresses -

Ginny gasped. In an instant, Tom had spun Druella round until they both stood on the outer ledge of the astronomy tower, the darkness of the night open at their feet, a yawning abyss. The wind whipped at their hair, black and silver, dark robes swirling around the two prone figures, stark against the moon.

"Tom!" Druella gasped. She twisted against him, but his hold on her must have been relentless. His voice was almost drowned out by the howling wind, but Ginny moved forward until she could hear every word, spoken with a calm, cold certainty.

"So you would leave me, then?" Tom lifted his face and Ginny realised he was laughing, laughing at the at the dizzying drop, so close. The moonlight fell across the aristocratic planes of his white face; he looked like an avenging angel. "I don't think so. Not you, Druella, you would never have the strength. You would stay if I wanted you to." He gazed impassively all the way down, then back up again, close enough to murmur against her ear. "I think you would even fall, if I wanted you to."

"Tom -"

"_Tell me_," he insisted, his pale hands curled around her shoulders, just one push away from a fall that seemed endless. "Will you walk, Druella, or will you fall? Or will you stay with me?"

Druella's eyes were closed, tearstains glittering on her hollowed cheeks. "I'll stay," she whispered against his shoulder. "I'll stay with you, Tom."

When he finally stepped back inside, Druella was breathing heavily, clinging to his slender shoulders like a drowning mariner might grasp at a lifeline. Tom looked down at her, lazy, amused.

"Go back to the common room, Druella," he said.

She hesitated. "Won't you join me?"

"Later." Satisfied with her submission, he was cool again, indifferent. He stepped away from her, arms crossed.

But not before she noticed the book he held onto so tightly.

"What's that?"

"Leave it," Tom said sharply, but she had already plucked it from his grasp. He moved towards her, marble hands outstretched. Ginny inched forward, desperate, curious. So many memories. The ending was different but they all began the same way. _Dear Tom…_

Druella opened the book, then looked back up at him in bewilderment. "It's empty."

Tom smiled faintly. "To you, yes. But then, you never could see beneath the surface of things."

"But why do you have a -"

He shook his head, staring at her. His pale skin seemed almost to shimmer in the shadowy twilight. "You were never a part of this." He took the book from her, tucking it away within his robes. His prefect badge flashed at the movement, like a poisonous star, like the eye of a snake; it hurt Ginny's eyes.

"Don't be long," Druella said wistfully as she trailed out of the tower room, a haunted, lonely ghost of a girl.

Tom remained standing at the wide aperture, his figure black against the night. Scudding clouds cast moving shadows across his white skin. Ginny leaned back against the wall, her heart beating hard. Try as she might, she could not shake off the images of Druella so close to falling, so broken. She knew that desperate tumble into darkness (_I would fall off the edge of the world for you, Tom). _She remembered too his idle caresses of a languorous lover and how he had held the girl inches _(hundreds upon thousands of feet) _from death. Just one push was all it would have taken. For one moment, she had been almost sure he _would - _

And for a horrible split second, she had wanted him to.

_**What the hand dare seize the fire? **_(William Blake, _The Tyger_)

Tom began to dream of fire.

Not the fire of the Blitz that used to wake him so violently in the early days of the London bombing, but a different, softer heat. These dreams didn't cause him to bolt awake in a hard bed, cold and sweating and shaking. Instead, he tossed and turned in silken emerald sheets, wanting to bask in the inviting warmth _soclose_, to feel it melting his marble-cold skin. Fire to warm the heart and sever the soul. He saw his blue-veined wrists and yearned to see crimson tributaries flowing beneath the skin. He saw a pristine, delicate figure and rippling pre-Raphaelite hair. Hair red as fire. Red as blood. Soon, he vowed, she would be stained with the blood of Mudbloods. Freckles the colour of cinnamon and skin that smelt of sunlight. A tiger lily, ripe for the picking.

Other times, he saw her flying. A red comet, blazing, bleeding across the sky. He watched as the wind rushed through her hair, sending it streaming behind her like a banner, her face upturned to the bracing air. She did not want to drown, so she flew instead. Tom could not say how he knew this, only he did. Just as he knew that the higher she flew, the further away she went from underground chambers, darkness and pools of water even though that was where she belonged. Her soul had once floated on a haze of green effervescent light, trapped within the confines of a stone prison. And now -

Endless, cloudless blue. And she soared above the clouds, beyond the reach of anything, _anyone. _Nothing could catch her. Perhaps not even him. But still he tried, singeing his fingers, seeking, grasping -

"Tom. _Tom._"

Slowly, he opened his eyes, the cold night air biting into his skin at once. He was in his dormitory, dimly lit with cool green lights. Druella was leaning over him, long hair spilling over her shoulders, pale as moonlight and fine as cobwebs. Her luminous skin seemed touched with a faint phosphorescence, her breathing so light she really could have been a ghost.

"You were talking in your sleep," she said, shattering the illusion in the frenetic rise and fall of her chest.

"Was I?" Tom muttered drowsily.

She nodded.

He stretched languidly, easing out his long body. "Anything of interest?"

"I don't - I don't know -"

He reached up and caught a strand of hair, bringing her face closer to his. "You're so pale," he murmured. Others might have been moved by Druella's spectral beauty, Tom was not one of them.

"I'm fine."

"I wasn't asking if you were sick."

Tom sat up, the sheets pooling around his narrow hips in a rustle of silk. His flesh was searing cold; the thought of Druella touching him, kissing him with frozen lips was suddenly repulsive. He groped for his wand on the bedside table and eased himself out of bed. His pale figure moved towards the fireplace.

"_Incendio," _he said.

The fire leapt into life, a rippling sheet of red and gold, the crackling tips licking the marble edges of the fireplace. He stood still for several moments, feeling the wave of heat washing over his bare skin. But it wasn't enough. Never enough.

Druella was sitting up in bed, staring at him. "But you _never _have the fire lit."

"I know," said Tom.

**Lovelorn**

Dating was a very easy business, once you got down to it. A few choice words here, an appropriate laugh there, and it seemed any boy was to be had for the taking. If Ginny had known this before, she was certain she would not have been so blushing and tongue-tied around Harry in those early years.

When had things started to change? One moment she was merely the youngest Weasley girl that tagged along after her brothers, the next she was a vibrant, popular Chaser with a fierce, desperate, hunted look in her eyes. Eyes that were far too old for a girl of sixteen.

Boys liked her. She would have been blind not to see that. But they saw only a part of her. They saw her as she was in daylight hours. Bright, funny, confident. They didn't know that inside she was as brittle as glass and dreaded the darkness even as she secretly longed for it.

She wondered where her shyness had gone. She wondered when she had become so aggressive towards the men in her life.

She was cruel, too. She had not been cruel before. It often came without thinking - poisonous words acidic on the tip of her tongue, vicious thoughts darting through her mind with the speed of a striking snake, a bitter laugh-that-wasn't-quite-a-laugh. _Weasley temper, _her friends said, merely dismissing it as one of her quirks.

Sometimes, she argued with Dean on purpose. He was so cheerful, so easy-going, so hopelessly… _nice. _There was no cruelty in Dean, no wickedness. He would have been improved by a little wickedness. Secretly, she acknowledged to herself that this was why she tried to rile him. If she had managed to uncover some hidden depths, she might have tried harder to keep him when things began to fall apart. She could have stopped him slipping away but she lacked the energy.

Her friends thought she was mad. Dean was cheerful, funny, good-looking, nice. It was idiocy to let him go.

But good-looking and nice were no longer enough. Or perhaps all too much. After all, that was how it began.

Kindness. Affection. Manipulation. Possession. Invasion. Destruction.

Such was the lesson of love, and Ginny had learnt the hard way. And yet she sometimes thought she was doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over. Similarities that kept reappearing that she fiercely tried to push to the back of her mind -

Dean was dark-haired. Michael had been dark-haired. And Harry -

She loved Harry. But then, it was impossible to _not _love Harry. Sometimes, she suspected he was looking at her differently these days. But after five years of frustrated desires, she hardly dared to let herself hope. And in the dark, voices whispered to her that she wasn't good enough, wasn't clever enough… _not like that Mudblood he spends so much time with… he never looks at _you _like that, does he? Why would he? No one will ever love you, Ginny, not like I do and always, always will, remember that, I'll never let you go…_

Oh yes, Tom had taught her all about love. The kind of passion that made the breath hitch and the heart pound, and the mind spin and spin and spin until there was nothing but the darkness, shades of endless black; black as night, black as ink, black as the juices of an overripe plum, black as congealed blood that ran down stone walls in cryptic messages… _your writing, Ginny, _yours_, because I told you to do it, and you'd do anything for me, wouldn't you, Ginny?_

Oh yes, Tom. Anything at all.

And still the black void remained empty, and waited.

…

Tom tired of Druella quickly, far more quickly than he had expected. Only now was he beginning to realise how great his destiny was. These alliances and petty power games among the Slytherins struck him as contemptuously banal these days. He dominated them all, and it had been accomplished with ridiculous ease. In his heart and soul, he hungered for a greater conflict, one worthy of his greatness and power.

Grindlewald? Dumbledore?

But it was not those great and powerful wizards that he returned to time and time again. It was _her._

She was becoming an obsession. Tom was not acquainted with love or kindness or tenderness, but he understood craving. He had desired things before, but never quite like this. Never this _need, _this ceaseless longing. Without her, he was porcelain and marble, frozen and unmoving. He would stand as cold and lifeless as the statue of Salazar Slytherin that lay below the castle. _That_ was the true skeleton that lay in the Chamber forever. He would not succumb to the same fate.

Druella's pallor revolted him. Tom knew this now, with a resigned kind of acceptance. He had never cared for her, but he had tolerated her presence for what she could bring him. But now it seemed she was outliving her usefulness. Sometimes at night when she lay beneath him, it was not her he saw at all, but a tangle of pale limbs and freckled arms and hair the shade of blood and copper. It was only then that passion raged within him and he sought to subdue and dominate this phoenix, this creature of fire. And he wanted - oh, how he wanted. Take her, break her, his very own burnt offering. This one anomaly in his efficient, rigidly controlled world.

When would she come, this wild-eyed sacrifice?

He would stare into the mirror late into the night, until the firelit red coals burned to black, waiting for the gathering shadows to blaze with sudden illumination. All the while, she danced through his dreams, too fast, too fleeting for him to grasp, but he would have her yet.

But when? One year, ten years, fifty?

_You will not elude me forever, _he whispered into the emptiness, and no one answered_. _

Immortality would be his. And he would find her, this phoenix, this defiant spirit. Not in dreams and longings and maddened half visions, but alive in front of him, flesh and blood and skin and bone. Nothing else would suffice. He would penetrate the mysteries hidden in the caverns of her soul, hollow her out until she was a shell that answered only to _him. _He _must _find her.

Or lure her to him. After all, more flies were caught with honey than vinegar. But how? What did he have that could possibly entice her to him?

The question gnawed at him during the liminal hours as the moon climbed higher in the ever-darkening sky and Druella slept beside him as one dead, encased in ice and glass, with no lover's kiss to awaken her. In the darkness, the diary sat untouched, unopened. But Tom was patient. He could afford to wait, especially since it would be courting peril to open the Chamber again so soon…

Then it came to him with startling simplicity. There it was, sitting in front of him this whole time. The one thing that bound them together. Why had he never thought of it before?

The diary. It had all began with the diary, his blood staining the pages as he began the seemingly impossible task of finding a vessel. He would not wait and put his faith in uncertainties. He would have her and no other. Bind her to him, to paper and ink, and ensure that Salazar Slytherin's great labour was carried out.

The diary had always been different. Seemingly the most unremarkable of those Horcruxes he intended to create, but it had a purpose other than that of a receptacle for his soul. For what use was a soul, without a body to enact its desires? She would die in carrying out his ancient birthright.

And perhaps then this fever would be burned out of him, and he would be untouchable once more.

**Flesh and Blood**

The day Ginny forgot everything was the day she decided to take the book.

She knew, even before the eddying currents of receding time had realigned themselves, that something was going to be different. When the world was _(old?) _newly formed around her and her mind stopped spinning, she opened her eyes to the past. And she saw what it was that had changed.

Tom was nowhere to be seen. Normally, he was the magnetic force that drew her to places, the black hole and centre around which everything orbited. And now he was gone. She stood alone in the dormitory, the line of pristinely made beds stretching either side of her. Silver and green, those colours that haunted her nightmares. That whispered to her that the cold was good, that it could love her, if she would only allow it. That caused her eyes to open and see the Gryffindor walls were only that shade of red because they were slick with blood.

She stood, and waited. Only this time no blood dripped from her hands _(yet) _and she was no longer a child. She had stopped being a child the moment she opened a book of knowledge and darkness entered her soul. Bleeding away her sugar-coated childhood dreams and inscribing a much darker story that even now still ran through her veins, shaping her every decision since.

_Where are you, Tom?_

Ginny looked around, and she saw -

There. Innocuous as ever.

Her mouth went dry. It wasn't - _it is -_

Lying so innocently on a bedside table. It briefly occurred to her that it was not like Tom, to be so careless with his possessions, but she brushed that thought aside. She was too overwhelmed by seeing it again, after so many years. The last time Ginny had been so close to the diary, it had been tattered and ruined, ink seeping sullenly from its sodden pages, a Basilisk fang protruding from its heart and centre. But now… seeing it whole again, _alive, _it seemed to call to her.

She had never been able to physically touch anything before. But somehow - somehow - she _knew _that this book would be different. This was the book that had shattered and altered and changed her forever. How could it not be different? She took one step closer. Another. Another.

Something warned her not to touch it. But she couldn't stop herself now. Not in 1943. Not in 1993. Some fate drew her inexplicably on to taste the darkness, the danger, the death that lay within those leather-bound covers. It perversely fascinated her. Her heart was pounding in her throat; her palms slick with sweat. She wasn't going to do this… it was mad, _she_ was mad…

And Ginny reached out and laid her hands on the book.

Nothing happened.

She almost laughed at the anticlimactic outcome. Oh, she could _touch _it, certainly. Feel the worn leather cover beneath her fingers, trace the faded spine and gilded handwriting _(T.M. Riddle, Vauxhall Road, London) _but nothing jumped out at her, no Dark Magic passing through her veins. It was, after all, just a book.

_That's what you thought last time._

The inner voice sobered her like a pitcher of ice-cold water. She stood motionless, frozen with memories.

_Dear Tom, I can't tell you how wonderful it is that I've found someone to talk to at last… Dear Tom, something strange happened last night but I must have passed out because I don't remember where I was… Dear Tom, I think I'm losing my mind… Dear Tom, why won't you let me go… Dear Tom, please stop, I don't want to -_

Something fell on her shaking hands. Ginny looked down and realised she was crying. She hadn't cried since Harry had found her in the Chamber of Secrets nearly four years ago. _Crying won't save you, Ginny, now be a good girl and lie down, and I promise it will be quick, just like going to sleep…_

Her hands tightened on the diary until her nails dug into the hard leather-bound covering. She would take it, take it and _burn _it, destroy it for ever and ever until he was gone from her for good -

"I would put that back, if you know what's good for you."

The diary fell out of her rigid hands, hitting the table with a loud thump. Ginny was certain that her heart had stopped. And surely her breath, otherwise she would be screaming -

"Turn around."

She didn't move. Her consciousness was reeling, eddying, blindly she tried to steady herself, to _fight (run)_. _This can't be happening, this can't be real, not again…_

That quietly commanding voice spoke again. "Try to run, or even think about reaching for your wand, and you'll be dead in a moment. Believe me, you wouldn't be the first."

Slowly, she turned around. Her chest was tight with terror, longing -

There.

Black hair, parchment-pale skin, liquid eyes. Exactly as she remembered him from the dark corners of her nightmares. But the worst thing was that she wasn't really certain they were nightmares at all. And this time he was seeing her, truly seeing her. And his expression caught and held her still. Ginny had expected to see curiosity, outrage, sadistic glee.

She hadn't expected to see _recognition._

"_You_," he breathed, his mouth forming the ghost of a smile. It was not a pleasant one.

Her heart thudded out a panicked rhythm. _How does he know me? How _can_ he know me?_

"Come closer."

Unthinking, she obediently took one stumbling step forward, then another - _so near - _then horror roiled through her stomach and up her throat. _No - _

She stopped dead. Tom was still watching her, oddly wary. She wrapped her arms around herself, her body shaking uncontrollably -

He moved easily towards her, pausing to look down at her through narrowed eyes. "You've been following me for weeks now. No… longer than that, even. Did you really think I wouldn't notice?"

"No, I -"

"That _was _you I saw in the corridor, wasn't it? And my dreams… did you do that as well?"

_Dreams, what dreams, I don't -_

"I didn't -"

"Don't attempt to lie to me. I _will_ know."

She looked towards the door and inhaled an unsteady breath through tight lungs.

"I've put a Silencing charm on the room." His voice was calm. "No one will hear you."

She had fought Death Eaters, Ginny reminded herself. She could face a student. _He's still a boy, _she told herself over and over._ He's not Voldemort yet. _But Voldemort was never the one she had been afraid of. Slowly, _slowly, _her hand inched backwards, seeking her wand… _where is it?_

Tom was studying her, quietly curious, as though she were some unusual magical artefact for his perusal. "You're different," he said at last. "You're not a student here, are you? I would _know_. I'd have remembered a face and hair like yours, I'm sure."

Ginny wasn't sure what he meant by that and didn't dare to ask. _There. _She had no sooner touched the polished wood of her wand when Tom gripped her wrist, halting her questing fingers. His touch was like cold metal. So cold it burned like frostbite. The wand clattered uselessly to the floor. She tried to squirm away because she _hated (loved) hated _him, but he held her fast, unimaginable strength in his narrow, high-shouldered frame. Her skin was frozen beneath his touch, but inside she was blazing, burning like a fallen star. And she was sick, sick with longing…

"Then again, you're the right age, and your _robes_… and you're certainly no ghost."

Cold fingertips traced the line of her jaw. The yellow and black ring glittered on his hand. "Did Dumbledore send you?" he inquired.

What was she going to _do? _Everything she had learned in the DA last year was a mindless blank. She tried to calm herself, to _think, b_ut _how _could she think with him here, in front of her, holding her, just as she had always dreaded _(wanted)_ -

"Answer me," he said harshly, shaking her once, hard. Then his expression softened again. "Remember that I know more than you think. I know you're a Gryffindor, that you've been watching me for some time now. But there are things _you _should know, like the fact I am not someone to be crossed. What do you think of that, little dreamer?"

He leaned in towards her_. _Up close, she could see his face lacked the flawed familiarity of Harry's, his white skin unmarked by any freckles. In his eyes, black as shadows, she saw no mercy.

"Tom -"

"You know my name?" He smiled absently. "Not that it matters. Names imposed on us by others mean very little, wouldn't you agree? Our _true _names, however…"

She summoned all her courage, squaring her small shoulders. "What's yours, then? _Voldemo-"_

_That _startled him. He drew a sharp intake of breath. "_Who are you?"_

_I have an advantage. I know him, his future, but he doesn't know _anything _about me, not even my name - _

For the first time, she realised she had power over him. The realisation hit her like the heady rush of _Felix Felicis. _It was intoxicating.

And Ginny started to laugh.

Nothing could have angered him more. She felt his iron grip tighten. Outwardly, he was calm and quiet, as always, but she sensed the electric tension beneath the cool exterior, the subtle cruelty he was so capable of. He looked hard into her face, eyes blazing.

"The truth. Your name."

He was looking at her intently, dark eyes digging into her very soul with long, prying fingers, seeking to uncover her innermost secrets, _but he knows them already…_. Then she realised, too late, what he was doing. And of course, the more she tried _not _to think of it, the more the words inevitably rose to the surface of her mind. _Not thinking, not thinking, _not thinking -

But she saw it was hopeless. With a sinking feeling, she watched as a slow smile spread across his face.

"Ginny," he said.

…

"Ginny," he said.

Short for Ginevra, not Virginia, to his surprise. _Virginia _would have been more appropriate. His sweet little virgin sacrifice. He probed deeper.

_Ginny… _

_Weasley._

For a moment, disgust filled him. A Weasley? It was so very… common. A _Weasley _to carry out the will of his second self? It was unthinkable. He looked her over in contempt. Yes, she was a Weasley, alright. Vulgar, brash, freckled, and Gryffindor to the core. He should have guessed it at once.

But then Tom looked closer. She was shaking down to the bone, whether it be from terror or defiance, and the wild force of her gaze could have burned him alive. That was interesting. Oh, she _hated _him. And how much sweeter it was than Druella's passive devotion or the admiration of his professors or the submissive obedience of his housemates. Yet she was as fragile as a doll for all that; her pretty face haunted and vulnerable with the shadow of grief. Faint traces of tear tracks glittered on her cheeks.

_Her tears and my blood._

A sense of wild, cold joy suddenly filled him. His expression was radiant. It had happened, then.

_She has already been marked, already been chosen. I will make it binding. There can be no other._

Yes, he had chosen her. Formed her, shaped her, made her a part of his destiny. Besides, he needed her only until the self bound within the diary's pages could take form. And was it not a curiously fitting irony? A Gryffindor carrying out the work of Salazar Slytherin? For who would suspect such a girl to be the guardian of his will? Who would look for Slytherin's heir in the heart of Gryffindor?

_It's more perfect than I ever imagined. My word made flesh._

How fitting. To revenge Godric Gryffindor's cowardice and Mudblood sympathies by sacrificing one of his own to Slytherin's monster. How much of himself had he already poured into her? The part of Tom that endlessly thirsted for knowledge wanted to know _more, _to demand that she tell him whether his destiny was being enacted, that the name of Lord Voldemort was known and feared throughout the Wizarding World.

He tugged at her arm sharply, pulling her towards his bedside table where the diary lay, still unopened.

"You know what this is, don't you?"

She glared at him, saying nothing. Tom realised he had become used to unthinking obedience. Outright defiance came as something of a surprise. It made no difference. Willing or not, she was his. He had chosen her, and there could be no severance.

"Of course you know. I was right - how could it be otherwise?"

"Tom -"

_Tom. _How he hated that name. But from _her _lips… it was something profound and awed and fearful and terrible. What twisted array if emotions did this girl feel for him to say his name with such adoration and loathing? As for his other name -

She couldn't know. She _couldn't. _No one knew. He had been so careful. She knew too much, of that he was certain.

Two words. Six syllables. Then he would be free of her forever. It would be so easy.

A thrill of exhilaration ran through him at the thought of killing her. It was intoxicating.

_No. Not yet._

He had other plans for this one. He would form her in his own image, filling that brightness with shadows, hollowing her out, a vessel to suit his purposes, to harness his soul. She had no comprehension of the great honour he was bestowing upon her. Not that it wouldn't kill her in the end, of course. But her death would be for a higher purpose -

Her arm twisted beneath his hold the same instant her demurely stockinged leg flew out from beneath her robes, catching him painfully in the shin. Tom's hand flew to his wand, ignoring the throb of pain in his lower leg that her foot had inflicted.

"_Stupefy_," he said softly, almost tenderly. She collapsed at once, and Tom's arms opened to receive her.

She smelt of spices and orange blossom. For a moment, it made him light-headed. He could feel the blood pulsing beneath the surface in an urgent rhythm. Her skin was warm, _alive_, not white like his own, but pale gold and peach, her cheeks dusted with freckles the colour of cinnamon. So delicate, that skin, it would take just the slightest indentation of his nails to break the flesh and leave the faintest path of red. Gryffindor colours, Gryffindor blood.

She was so light, weighing barely more than a child. He stared down at the limp body in his arms. _The tangle of pale limbs, the freckled arms, hair the shade of blood and copper. _He suspected her to be about his age, though she was small, far smaller than Druella, who would stand a head taller than this girl. Too thin as well, Tom thought, casting a scrutinising eye over her prone figure. How still she was. So vulnerable.

The sudden surge of desire that flared in his bloodstream caught him off-guard. At seventeen, Tom was no stranger to his physical impulses, yet it had always been something far removed from himself, a vague and unimportant thing, easily forgotten. Nothing like this elemental warring beneath his skin, the fierce and savage longing to revive the girl and make the hatred in her eyes turn to lust, to turn her fury and antipathy to willingness and wanting. It would be his greatest victory.

Tom paused, startled. Where had _that _thought come from? It disturbed him. He realised he _wanted _this girl, this burnished little gypsy. Oh so very much.

Her poppy-red hair spilled around her small face. He twisted his fingers through the vibrant strands, bringing her face closer to his. Poppies. A symbol of death, of eternal sleep. Tom wondered idly if she realised that in Greco-Roman mythology it also symbolised the promise of resurrection after death. Either way, it did not matter. Her life and soul were his now. If he wished her to die, then she would die. If he wished for her to rise again, she would be reborn. A phoenix out of the ashes.

But what would happen when the phoenix clashed with the serpent, these two ancients caught in a battle of scales and feathers and fangs and talons?

She was dangerous. Not to others, but to _him _specifically. She was unaware of her true power. He _should _kill her. He thought briefly of her freckled skin, splashed with blood. Tempting as that was… No. He needed her alive, for the time being. Iron-willed self-control was something Tom had grown up with from his earliest years. He was more than capable of controlling his wilder impulses.

Instead, he stroked her flaming hair, speaking softly to her unresponsive form. "You understand, don't you, the honour of what I'm entrusting you with?"

Long fingers traced the shape of her face, the lightly freckled skin, the damp lashes, the swell of her lips, slightly parted.

"This is where it begins. The making of a new world. You will die, and _I…_ I will live forever."

His half-tender caress paused at the glistening moisture lingering on her cheeks.

_Her tears and my blood, _he thought, again.

One arm bracing her, he shifted her body slightly so he was better able to handle his wand. Steeling himself, he traced it with deliberate slowness across his upturned palm. Again he felt that burning ice-ache beneath the skin. The bead of blood darkened his wrist. Her tears glinted, pearlescent, before the blood fell, clouding the tears with dark colour, like wine through water. It trickled steadily downward, leaving a trail across the diary's open pages.

"_With my blood, I bind thee."_

And the liquid disappeared into the paper. Holding her face in his hands, Tom leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. A benediction.

"_So mote it be."_

It was done. She would be the living will of his other self, the self bound in the diary. He would know her the moment her hand touched those pages. Willing or not, she was _his. _He did not need her loyalty. Did not _want _it. It would be so much sweeter to drain her slowly, to watch her struggle, and fight, and finally succumb. They always succumbed at the end. How he would relish the sight of the warm skin turning cold and pallid, the bright eyes dimming in death, her soul sinking into an endless void, the pure, _Gryffindor_ blood freezing in her veins...

Frozen? No, no, he didn't want that at all. He didn't want her quiet and cold, like a statue, like Druella. However gratifying it might be to see her pliant and at his mercy, a deeper, fiercer part of him wanted her awake, alive, wild, as unruly and blazing as the flashes of her hair he glimpsed, always just out of his reach.

He _must _speak with her. A faint smile touched his lips.

"_Ennervate."_

Her eyes fluttered open. The moment she saw him, she tried to jerk away. Tom tightened his arms around her easily, somewhat surprised at his body's very primitive response to the feel of her struggling against him. She was breathing hard, her thin chest pressed against his. "What did you - let _go -"_

"Do stop struggling," he said impatiently. "I haven't hurt you yet, have I?"

Bright, sharp agony flashed through her eyes. "_Yes."_

"Liar," he snarled, suddenly incensed beyond reasoning. "I've barely touched you."

She shook her head, tendrils of hair flying to and fro like dancing flames at the movement. "You _have _hurt me, But not in a way you would understand."

Tom shrugged. He was in no mood for speaking in riddles. He held up the diary, noting with interest the shudder that passed through her when she looked at it.

"Now tell me what this is."

"The past." She spoke dully.

"No. It is the future." Tom paused. "_Our _future. How would you like that? Would you like to be a part of something magnificent?"

"Go to hell," she spat.

Tom thought suddenly back to the orphanage, of London's skies burning and the streets filled with the dead and dying. His face hardened. "I've already been."

She sneered. "Not for long enough."

He looked over her curiously. "Whatever did I do to make you hate me so much?"

She pressed her lips tightly together, shaking her head. He could have used legilimency and found out at once, but it was far more enticing to persuade her to tell him… to open up to him… in _every _sense_._

"Tell me."

Ginny glared at him, her expression filled with loathing. Tom realised he was enjoying himself immensely. Her hatred was an addictive stimulant, something new and intoxicating. She was vibrant, magnetic. Heat to his coolness.

"You won't say? You won't tell me anything… Ginny?" He tested the word on his tongue, finding that he liked the sound of it very much. Ginny, his little blood sacrifice, his martyr, his unsung requiem. His fire in the depths of the earth. Warming his soul in its long, lonely wait for awakening.

The sound of her name from his lips seemed to do something to her. Her head jerked up, both horror and indescribable yearning flickering across her small, vivid face. Tom leaned forward. Oh, how easy they all were to read, these Gryffindors, that all wore their hearts on their sleeves. Yes, he had her now.

"You pretended to love me," she said at last. A pause. "And I believed you."

He smiled. "Did I? And how did I go about it, I wonder? Did I perhaps…?"

Without knowing where the impulse came from, Tom leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth, inwardly relishing the small, involuntary gasp, the stiffening of her slim body against his. Searing potions and snake venom could not have consumed him more utterly. She tasted of firewhiskey, scorching his lips, the blood in his veins transcending to liquid elixir, sharp and sweet and burning. Perhaps _this, _then, was the rebirth he had always envisaged. He dimly registered her weak struggles, but merely grappled her closer to him, body to body, pressing his hips against hers and felt her body relax and become pliant in his arms -

_No. This can go no further. She is a tool, the guardian of my second self. A pawn. Nothing more. I will not allow her to be anything more._

Slowly, he forced himself to draw back. A taste of forbidden fruit was all he would allow himself. Any more and his future would fade before it was even formed. And yet… what was a mere taste when he wanted to consume her whole?

Tom barely registered the stinging sensation against the side of his face. She was trembling, the hand that had struck him now balled in fury. Her eyes burned and her hair flickered around her face in fiery tendrils. "What the hell was -"

"_Obliviate." _The spell left him calmly, with intent. He watched as a veil seemed to fall over her eyes, the irises becoming dim and unfocused. For now. Only for now. Tom had performed enough memory charms to know there would be no lasting damage. Enough only to ensure she would have no memory of this little encounter. Not after that display of weakness he had so foolishly indulged in.

But she had given him the idea. The perfect, ironic, wonderful idea. _To make her love him. _Oh yes, he would remember that, when the time came. Little Miss Weasley would be sorry she ever revealed that to him.

But she would not know any of this yet. However, in time…

Her eyes flickered, still vague, still unfocused. The traces of tears still lingered on her lashes. And Tom kissed the curve of her neck _(so soft), _inhaling the scent of innocence and it was sweet.

He could keep her. Possess her, take her, make her his. Tangle his hands in that wild red hair, make her scream in pain, scream in pleasure. Would she shudder as he slid his hands up her pale thighs, allow him to take her body as he would inevitably take her soul? Ripping every last veil of innocence from her, their entwined hands awash with blood and ink as he watched the phoenix being reborn from the fire of his relentless desire, robbing her of every last breath, no name on her lips but _his_ as she died and lived again. Enchain her in an eternal caress. Together, they could shape the world as they wished, and it was so very, very tempting. Never before had Tom released anything he had put his mind to possessing, but he had chosen her for another purpose. For his future -

Tom stared. She was… _blurring. _The edges of her were becoming indistinct, like pale gossamer or fragile lace. The sight of it was oddly familiar, relishing that moment of awakened _life, _of existence... _green light and water, water, water, can you feel it, Ginny? Life - _my _life - coming back to me… _That fire-kissed hair fading, rippling, and her body dissolving to fleeting mist, to water-veined pallor. Like trying to grasp the wind and hold it in his hands as the arms of another time opened to prise her from his hold.

_No, _a part of him thought. _No, I am not ready to renounce her just yet. _But he knew it would be safer if he did. And so Tom cradled her in his arms as she began to fade. And to stir, fleetingly.

"Tom -" she began to say, then was gone. The dormitory echoed with her silence, and with all that she had no chance to say.

Tom sank down until he was seated cross-legged on the floor, a black-bound book in his hands where a girl had been so recently, her presence still lingering like one of the ghosts who wandered the corridors of this castle. Gone, but not forgotten.

And, one day, he would find her again.

Tom closed his eyes, a curving whisper escaping his lips as his pale hands traced the paper with words yet unwritten.

_You will awaken me from half a century of (stony) sleep._

_And I will awaken you from a child's dreams of peaceful happiness and sweet morning promises. I will offer you black-stemmed roses and ink-stained kisses in exchange for your heartfelt words and willing body. I will drown your innocence in blood and tears, and arise from water to bestow my gratitude for your place in my resurrection._

_And I will kill you, Ginny Weasley._


End file.
